Come with us as we journey through our next chapter

Day Nineteen

The end of our 19th day on the road, finds us in a gorgeous new Comfort Suites hotel, with a beautiful king bed suite on the second floor, in Kanab, Utah. Today was not a heavy mileage day, as we only drove 157 miles, and checked in a little after 3 PM.

We knew we didn’t have a lot of driving to do, so we had kind of a lazy morning, and also did some tasks we’ve been meaning to do for a couple of days. After breakfast at the hotel at about 9 AM, we started to reorganize and clean out the back seat of the car. After all this time on the road, we had garbage that we needed to get rid of. Susie also repacked the food in a smaller bag, and because of the way our days have turned out, and the fact that we are eating breakfast most days at the hotel, she threw out a box of Cheerios and paper bowls we left home with. We had honestly figured we were going to eat cereal and milk in our room, and then lunch in the car, but the hotel breakfasts have turned out to be so good, and included in our room rate, that those plans have changed.

One thing we have noticed about the “free breakfasts” is that an awful lot of people are pigs! My God, some of their plates look like they are in a Vegas Buffet, rather than a Comfort Inn! One day last weekend, we were in the breakfast room, and were unlucky enough to be behind this couple. When they got to the eggs and sausage, they both filled their plates and Susie and I found the cupboard was empty when we got there! On the way out, we passed their table, and they had 4 or 5 plates full of food with everything from eggs to sausage to toast to waffles, not to mention the cups of juice and coffee! Not going to eat lunch? These two were not eating for the rest of the day!!! A lot of selfish human beings in the world, but then I’m sure you all knew that already!

Another area that has been effected by those changed plans, is our cooler. If you remember, last week in Rock Springs, Wyoming we downsized our cooler at a Walmart and then donated our old cooler to the Rock Springs Fire Department. We were obviously still thinking back to road trips from long ago, and having lunches in the car. Well, because of the hotel breakfasts, we rarely eat lunch, so that almost never happens. Frankly, yesterday we had to throw out the remaining items we had in the cooler, because they were 2+ weeks old. After doing that, we seriously looked at the notion of food in the car and the cooler. The fact is that we just don’t need the items we have to keep on ice. Buying ice every day or 2 is a pain, and all we were doing was preserving something that we’re really not using. So, the cooler is now on the back seat floor, all our water is in it, and if we get to keep it cool, fine, but if we don’t also fine! We’ve still got cheese sandwich crackers, some Goobers peanut butter and jelly, and Ritz crackers…we won’t starve! Compared to buying ice all the time, if we have to have a hamburger at Mickey D’s every once in a while, we are still ahead of the game. We still have our little zipper soft sided cooler we take into the hotel every night, but since most rooms we’ve had have refrigerators, the contents gets unpacked every day, and kept cool. We will probably shop for a better soft sided cooler in the future, and as long as it’s big enough to fit a bottle of rum and vodka, we will be happy!

Once we got the car back together, we headed back to the room for a few minutes before heading out. Rather than get right on the road, we headed across the street to the self service car wash. Nothing gets the bugs off the windshield and the front end of the car like the power wand at these car washes, and we have availed ourselves at several along the way in the last couple of weeks! A couple of minutes and $3.25, and we have a clean car again! Nothing dries a car as well as going 80 MPH on an Interstate, so off we went on Interstate 70.

As we had all the time in the world today, Susie found something in one of the guide books that she wanted to stop at. It was called Fremont Indian State Park and Museum. It cost us all of $6 to go in, and we saw a very nice movie and got to wander through a very well put together museum. The museum and the park are dedicated to a group of Native American’s who lived in the area by the Fremont River from about 300 AD to 1300 AD. A lot of the material about them had been discovered in the 80s when they were building Interstate 70, which is right out front of the park. All they know about these people is what they have found in the area. They don’t know where they came from, or why after a 1000 years of residence in the area, they left. It was another interesting little stop along the way.

We were the only ones in the place, besides the older gentleman working the counter. On the way out, we told him we were going to drive route 89 to Kanab, and he said, “If I drove 89 every day from here to the state line and back, I’d be a happy person.” So, that’s what we did! The road goes between mountains, so there are a lot of turns, but the scenery is beautiful. We will backtrack a bit tomorrow on this road heading to Bryce Canyon National Park, but we really don’t mind.

These next two days before we head to Vegas are kind of relaxing days. This is just the 3rd time on our trip that we have spent 2 nights in one hotel, and Susie already has done laundry, and is now reorganizing suitcases for Vegas. We both realize that we took too many clothes, as we have worn things more than once, and today is the 3rd day that laundry has been done. We found it hard to plan for 2 months on the road, especially since two weeks of that time will be a Caribbean Cruise, where we will obviously need different clothes than we’re wearing on the road and in National Parks! Not sure yet. but we may even send a suitcase home!

Susie commented today as we headed down 89, that we had great timing on this trip. First, with the exception of one full day of rain in Pennsylvania, and a couple of showers last week in Colorado, we have had perfect weather. The days have been warm, but with 20-30 percent humidity, it doesn’t feel like July in Florida! Also, as most kids are back at school, the folks traveling have been our age, and the crowds are less.

Another thing to share with you, as today is a little light on National Parks, cog railways, or incredible sights, is our National Parks soundtrack. A number of years ago, at Red Rock Canyon National Park, just outside of Vegas, we bought a beautiful Native American flute CD, that we always took to Vegas with us. The haunting melodies just seemed to go with the other worldly sights we were seeing in Red Rock. It wasn’t until we were at Badlands National Park, our first park of the trip, that Susie realized we’d left it or something like it home. In the gift store she found a CD called National Parks Soundscapes, and it has been our sound track of every National Park or National Monument we’ve visited. Jimmy Buffett and Sirius/XM’s Margarita Radio is our #1 audio companion on the road, but once we hit the entrance gates, the satellite goes off, and the CD starts playing. Just sets the right mood for us!

Dinner tonight was at another local place…Houston’s Trail’s End Restaurant. Nothing fancy, just a local place, full of local people, with good food. It’s been in business for 32 years, so it must be doing something right!